Robots that can tag the sky

This article was taken from the October issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online

From September 18 to 26, these robotic arms will be assembled in Trafalgar Square as the centrepiece of the London Design Festival. The project, called Outrace, is the work of German designers Reed Kram, 38, and Clemens Weisshaar, 33, and will allow visitors to send electronic messages, which the robots will draw in light in the sky.

“We’ve wanted to do something with robots for a long time,” says Kram, who trained as an industrial designer and coded part of the project. “The most challenging aspect is the software, which nobody sees. To get it right we worked with Kuka Robotics and the experts at Audi.”

The light messages are 70 characters long (“half a tweet”, as Weisshaar observes) and will be displayed in a font designed by London typographer Khashayar Naimanan, based on Old English and street graffiti. They will then be captured by 36 cameras surrounding the robots and the images uploaded to the web and left online indefinitely. The designers estimate that the robots will be able to send one message per minute, meaning that around 10,000 will be sent during the eight days.outrace.co.uk